For many a year afterwards I used to dream of his face as he sank, and of the way the ice heaved like the breast of some living thing, and fell back, and of the heavy waves that rippled over it out of that awful hole.  But great as was the shock, it was small to the storm of shame and agony that came over me when I realized that every comrade who had been around the lad had saved himself by a rush to the bank, where we huddled together, a gaping crowd of foolhardy cowards, without skill to do anything or heart to dare anything to save him.

At that time it maddened me so, that I felt that if I could not help the lad I would rather be drowned in the hole with him, and I began to scramble in a foolish way down the bank, but John Binder caught me by the arm and pulled me back, and said (I suppose to soothe me),

“Yon’s the school-master, sir;” and then I saw Mr. Wood fling himself over the hedge by the alder thicket (he was rather good at high jumps), and come flying along the bank towards us, when he said,

“What’s the matter?”

I threw my arms round him and sobbed, “He was cutting a double three backwards, and he went in.”

Mr. Wood unclasped my arms and turned to the rest.

“What have you done with him?” he said.  “Did he hurt himself?”

If the crowd was cowardly and helpless, it was not indifferent; and I shall never forget the haggard faces that turned by one impulse, where a dozen grimy hands pointed—­to the hole.

“He’s drowned dead.”  “He’s under t’ ice.”  “He went right down,” several men hastened to reply, but most of them only enforced the mute explanation of their pointed finger with, “He’s yonder.”

For yet an instant I don’t think Mr. Wood believed it, and then he seized the man next to him (without looking, for he was blind with rage) and said,

“He’s yonder, and you’re here?”

As it happened, it was the man who had talked with his back to us.  He was very big and very heavy, but he reeled when Mr. Wood shook him, like a feather caught by a storm.

“You were foolhardy enough an hour ago,” said the school-master.  “Won’t one of you venture on to your own dam to help a drowning man?”

“There’s none on us can swim, sir,” said John Binder.  “It’s a bad job”—­and he gave a sob that made me begin to cry again, and several other people too—­“but where’d be t’ use of drowning five or six more atop of him?”

“Can any of you run if you can’t swim?” said the school-master.  “Get a stout rope—­as fast as you can, and send somebody for the doctor and a bottle of brandy, and a blanket or two to carry him home in.  Jack!  Hold these.”

I took his watch and his purse, and he went down the bank and walked on to the ice; but after a time his feet went through as the skater’s head had gone.

“It ain’t a bit of use.  There’s nought to be done,” said the bystanders:  for, except those who had run to do Mr. Wood’s bidding, we were all watching and all huddled closer to the edge than ever.  The school-master went down on his hands and knees, on which a big lad, with his hands in his trouser-pockets, guffawed.